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We’re super excited to share the new LP from New Jersey based duo Donovan Blanc, made up of Joseph Black and Raymond Schwab. Their newest record The Color Of Hearts is a superb mix of soul, disco, pop, and funk, all blended into a modern, cohesive piece of fresh music that can be played in a number of different settings. We were huge fans of their debut album a few years ago, so it’s awesome to finally hear more music from these two. Joe and Ray spoke with us about their process this time around, their favorite songs off the LP, and much much more. Check out our chat with them below and stream their new album!
Thanks for taking the time to catch up with us! Looking back at our archives, we last interviewed you back in April 2014 before your self-titled debut album was released. We’ll definitely get into the new stuff, but first, tell us what the response was like after that first album dropped and what the next year or two after that release was like.
Joe: The people who supported it really adored it, but it was decidedly subtle and as a first album, perhaps that’s not what people expect. It didn’t grab everyone on the first listen, it was more of a grower.
Ray: There was a flurry of activity around that time. We also played a handful shows around NY in the months after the release. The most fun I had was playing a show at Baby’s All Right with Santa Claus himself: R Stevie Moore. I’ve never met a met who owned so many fake rubber noses. He had an entire box filled with them. After that, we took a nice break. Springtime of last year was when we started to work on songs for The Color of Hearts.
I’m really loving the vibes on the new album. When did you begin working on The Color Of Hearts and was the songwriting or recording process any different from the first album?
Joe: Glad to hear it. I began writing it the year after our first LP came out. The songwriting process was entirely different; many of the songs on our first record were the result of several years of writing and recording a variety of songs with different ideas in mind as Honeydrum. That LP was really an exercise in finding a common thread and producing them in a way that felt natural without forcing anything into a box in which it didn’t fit. It was a fun exercise, but there was very little fresh material on that album; only half of the tracks were new, many of them were as many as four years old at the time we recorded them. This album is all new material, written over the past two years. It reflects the first real effort I’ve made to write an LP as a complete, cogent thought. It was conceived of as a whole and I think that it presents itself very much in that way, without ever being too much of one thing.
Ray: Thanks. The vibes are different from the first record, and so was the recording process. To start, I was working and living in Pennsylvania when we recorded the first record. That was less than ideal, but we made it work. We also wasted a lot of time carving out parts and fiddling with sounds when we were together. Since then, I moved back to NJ within blocks of Joe’s. Ironically, we worked on nearly all of The Color of Hearts on our own. I can remember only a handful of times we were in the same room, but the recording process was so much more efficient that way.
Do you have any personal favorites off of the new album? A couple of mine are “Never Let You Down” and “Where Do We Go From Here.”
Joe: I am a big fan of “Breanna” and “You Must Have Known”.
Ray: “Where Do We Go From Here” was among the first ones we started to work on last spring. It’s one of the songs that’s seen the most transformation over that time, so I would include that with my personal favorites too. I would also include “You Made A Fool of Me” and “Breanna” because they bring a different aesthetic to the record. I think Joe once offered this image: John Travolta crying over a beer.
The album sounds fantastic. As a fan of recording techniques, can you delve into any of the details around which microphones, instruments, and studio equipment were used to make this awesome sound?
Joe: Like our first record, this one was recorded and mixed completely by myself at my house. Because the ceiling is so low in my basement, we deadened most of the room completely and all of the mics we used were dynamic or ribbon to avoid phase issues and weird axial modes. For drums, we used one eye-level room mic and close miked the rest of the kit. I try to minimize the software plugins I use. I have a decent amount of outboard gear and I’m a fan of committing to a sound before getting it down. It eliminates a lot of the time it takes to mix and just makes the workflow feel much more natural. Post-processing I limit to subtle changes involving EQ or compression needed to make a sound live better inside a mix.
Are there plans to tour with these new tunes?
Joe: Currently, we do not have any plans to tour.
Ray: No. I really enjoyed playing with the group we assembled for the last few shows. Before that, we had trouble finding reliable musicians to play with. That spoiled the fun of playing shows for me. We considered touring in support of the first record, but it wasn’t a very appealing plan so we decided against it. Now there are many other things that are occupying us, so we don’t have plans to assemble and rehearse with a new group in the near future.
What are you guys currently listening to? Are there albums coming out that you’re really looking forward to?
Joe: I honestly haven’t been listening to much since we finished the album. Whenever a project is finished, I like to take a break from listening to music every day. It’s almost like a detox; I slowly begin reintroducing it after a few weeks. What I come back to usually has a big influence on what I begin working on.
Ray: The way I listen to music has changed so much in the last few years. Before, I spent a lot of time diligently seeking out and listening to new music. I also spent many hours listening to an evolving list of my favorite records each day. Now, I spend all of that time playing music instead. So my listening habits have changed as a result. Now I mostly listen to recordings of music that I’m learning to play. That runs the gamut from recordings of Martha Argerich to classic pop hits that I would be humiliated to name. There are some exceptions, though. Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything is a current favorite.
What else inspires you to create? Where do you draw creative influence from that bleeds into the sound?
Joe: I try not to rely much on inspiration, I see myself more as a worker.
Ray: Besides music, I connect most with the books I read. I’m also fascinated with the lives of the artists I respect. I want to know how they lived and how they worked. That’s given me the chance to make good changes to the way I work on music each day.
If you weren’t doing music, what would you be doing?
Joe: Making pizza.
Ray: If I wasn’t playing music, I would probably be a board operator at a local radio station desperately begging my estranged colleagues at Sirius XM to give me a job.
This is an awesome way to kick off 2017, what else in store for this year and beyond?
Joe: I’ll be finishing up and releasing a solo LP I’ve been working on.
Ray: Vacationing at Lake Annecy
